Superintendent Awaits Marks

Amid Official Evaluation, Some School Officials Offer Praise

WILLINGTON — As Corinne Berglund completes her first year as school superintendent this month, the board of education is in the process of evaluating her performance.

School board chairman Herbert Arico said board members are filling out evaluations of Berglund, which should be completed sometime this month.

Arico praised Berglund's leadership and the positive, harmonious working relationship the board enjoyed with her this past year.

`We've had a busy year,'' he said. ``And, personally, I felt she handled herself admirably.''

Melanie Tenny Becker, a five- year board member, agreed with Arico.

``I think she's done an excellent job,'' she said, praising Berglund's accomplishments on a long list of tasks that included working with personnel, the school budget, the curriculum and the facilities.

Becker also was pleased with Berglund's ability to obtain grant money for the schools. ``For a small town, that's a skill you want in your superintendent,'' she said.

Finance board member Kathleen Blessing said she found Berglund prepared and professional during the budget process. When school spending was challenged, Blessing said Berglund was never confrontational, but remained kind and calm as she repeatedly explained why various expenses were necessary.

``She was very willing to speak up for what was in the budget,'' Blessing said. ``That I was really happy about.''

Berglund said she likes working with the town's parents and school board members because they are hard working and committed to making a quality school system even better. She said the system's strongest asset is support from parents and the community.

``There is a strong commitment to getting kids a good strong start,'' she said, ``especially in the basics.''

When Berglund started her job last June, her first order of business was to assess the school system. She evaluated the needs and strengths of the schools, including individual instruction, the curriculum, the staff and student achievement.

In her report, she indicated a need for additional space and building updates. A short-term solution, she said, is to move the superintendent's office out of Hall Memorial School to help alleviate some of the space crunch. Berglund expects that to occur before September in conjunction with the town's consolidation of school and government accounting offices.

But long-range planning is also needed to solve space shortages, she added. Her goal for this coming year is to develop a five-year plan with the school board.

This month, Berglund is facing a controversy over whether Kathy Gerardi, a Hall school teacher who has been on paid medical leave for the past two years, will be allowed to return as a teacher this fall. Gerardi was granted a special form of probation in 1996 for filing false reports and fabricating threatening letters to herself to throw suspicion on a former student who had been stalking her. She recently asked to be reinstated and the issue has divided the town.

Because of the controversial nature of the situation, Berglund has said little publicly about Gerardi. Berglund won't even say whether she will make a recommendation to the school board regarding Gerardi's request for reinstatement.

But she announced recently that Gerardi's requested public reinstatement hearing is set for July 14.

Berglund said that when she began teaching reading and special- education students in the Midwest more than 30 years ago, she did not envision administrative duties in her future. She said it had never even dawned on her to become anything but a school teacher. She taught for 14 years, a long time compared with other school administrators, Berglund said.

But she said she made the switch from teacher to administrator because she wanted to make a bigger difference for more children.

So, for the past 18 years, she has worked as an administrator -- 11 of those years as a superintendent. After earning a school administrator's certificate from Southern Connecticut State University, she was a superintendent in Bethany for six years and in Lebanon for five years.

Berglund, 59, considers the time she spent in the classroom a real advantage. Most of the students she had taught experienced some type of difficulty, from learning to behavioral. Her classroom teaching taught her more than theories in a book, she said, but allowed her to put those theories to work.